Tower harbor

For all of two decades, hopes for development at the Tower harbor have met with frustration as the dreams of city officials—to convert the city’s link to Lake Vermilion into an economic engine— have fallen flat for one reason or another.
That era of disappointment may, finally, be coming to an end.
As we report this week, Tower Vision 2025 principal Orlyn Kringstad has assembled a development team with the financial horsepower and longtime management experience necessary to turn the city’s harbor and riverfront into the kind of tourism destination that city officials have long believed it could be.
It’s not a done deal by any means— there are still hurdles to be crossed and agreements to be negotiated. And the cycles of the economy haven’t always been kind to development plans at the harbor.
Yet, for the first time, we potentially have the people in place to make it happen and happen in a big way. Some of the pieces are already in place. The purchase of the 18-acre Marjo Motel parcel, formerly owned by the Mesojedec family, by the owners of Your Boat Club instantly put the riverfront’s most developable property in play. We could see new lodging opportunities under construction on that site yet this year, with much more to come in 2024, and the design of that development is likely to be shaped by this new team, which envisions the harbor, the Marjo site, Your Boat Club, and the Renner RV park as part of a single coordinated development with tremendous synergy.
Under the plan, much of the development would come under the management of Leisure Hotels and Resorts, a Minnesota-based company that owns and/or manages resort and hotel properties all across the country. Quality management is key to the success of whatever is built at the harbor and it’s been a missing piece of the puzzle from the beginning. That’s why the involvement of the company is so exciting. It’s a multi-million dollar enterprise with the resources and the expertise to help turn the harbor and adjacent riverfront properties into a destination that will have heads turning at Tower’s west entrance.
Leisure Hotels and Resorts president Jamie Tatge is intimately familiar with northern Minnesota. He currently owns or manages resort properties on Lake of the Woods, the North Shore, and his company recently acquired Silver Rapids Lodge near Ely, where he is planning a major redevelopment. His company also manages the Adventure Inn in Ely.
Tatge, who was in Tower last week, recognizes the potential of the harbor and adjacent properties and the remarkable confluence of outdoor recreational opportunities all within walking distance of the site, including a marina with direct water access to Lake Vermilion, one of the state’s premier walleye lakes. Add to that the direct connections to hiking and biking trails, and snowmobile and ATV trails, all located on a major highway that’s flush with tourists all summer long.
The potential is obvious, but how best to take advantage of this opportunity is very much a work in the early stages of development. The initial proposal put forward by Kringstad’s Tower Vision 2025 was very preliminary. What we know right now is that the final proposal for development at the harbor will likely be much different, although we expect it will include a mix of residential and/or lodging, as well as commercial opportunity. That’s consistent with the city’s long-term mixed-use vision for the site. The team is likely to pencil out any number of alternative concepts and layouts to see which makes the most sense for the site and provides the most return. That will take some time, which is why the Tower Economic Development Authority board opted to extend a previous deadline for showing financial capacity. The TEDA board recognizes the potential of the team that Kringstad has assembled and wasn’t about to stand in the way by enforcing a previous, somewhat arbitrary deadline. Financial capacity is unlikely to be a concern with this new team.
The focus, instead, will now turn to the details of the project, how it will be phased, and when we can expect to see construction underway. TEDA, which controls the land at the harbor and a key five-acre parcel along Marina Drive, will be playing a major role in helping to shape that plan and will be working to keep it consistent with the longstanding vision for the property. With any luck, after more than 20 years of dashed hopes and more than ten million dollars in public investment, the long-desired harbor development could soon be underway.